Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-06-08
WHAT IS VOLAPUK?
A LANGUAGE WITHOUT A NATION
ALITY-THE FUTURE SPEECH.

A Correspondent Writes Enthusiastically
About the Invention of the Rev. Father
johann Martin schleyer, OF Constance,
Baden, Germany.
Especial Correspondence
New YORK, June l.
Another language born Were there not
enough already Ever since the Tower OF
Babel diversity Of tongues has divided and
confused the dwellers Of the earth. There
were too many, and now there is one more.
Go to!
But there has been no international Ian
guage. The more strongly national the less
fitted for use by strangers. For that purpose
something different is needed; a mechanism,
rather than a growth. When we build a
steam engine or ship, we do not follow the
capricious forms which the environment has
produced in the tree. So, when we need q
language for those whose mother tongues are
unlike, it must be one Of perfect regularity,
simplicity and traightforwardness, avoiding
all that is local or eccentric or perverse.
The new language, "volapdk, " is only seven
years old Being mechanism, not growth,
is the product of one mans brain. A Catholic
leot, IRaStOf VI httjc pdI iSu Ou tuo il1tu
side of the Lake Of Constance. yet poet and
a linguist, had the great thought for years
shadowed in his mind, until, as he says, Zone
sleepless night the whole framework of the
universal language flashed out before me-"
Johann Martin Schleyer is now known to
thousands as the inventor of Volapik, the only
attempted universal language which has ever
had the least chance Of life.
s+*
There have been previous attempts, and
later attempts, at constructing universal Ian
gueges, but they have all fallen fat. Up to
the present time the world has not been ripe
for them. The very idea Of Internationally,
Of world citizenship is a modern one. The
ocean steamer the cable, the postal union,
the daily newspaper, all these instrumentali-
ties make international speech possible and
give it an excuse for existence.
Nor has any other project for international
speech SO closely struck the golden mean Of
common sense The others have usually been
based upon too abstract a classification Of
ideas and have discarded the experience of
existing languages. But Father Schleyer has
reasoned thus: In the study OF many lam
guages we certainly perceive defects and
points Of superiority. Each language has
forms of expression which are clear, simple
and direct, and has other forms which are
unnatural, clumsy and difficult to learn.
Why not, then, select the good and reject the
ad! This is what Schleyer has aimed to do,
a. we shall see hereafter.
The result is that Volapuk has been rapidly
gaining adherents in Europe until they are
numbered by the thousands, and the societies
devoted to its spread by the hundreds. There
are three periodicals published entirely in
Volapiik, besides others in Volapik and Ger
man, Volapuk and French, Volaptik and
Spanish, Volapiik and Danish Volaptik and
Italian, Volapak and Dutch. Volaplk Cham
payne is new brand; there is Volapiik
music, Volapiik songs, Volapik beer glasses
and Volapdk badges, bearing the VolapGk
symbol, the globe crossed by the caduceus of
4darcury with the motto "Menad Bal, Pik
Bal" or Zone Humanity, one Language"
Until recently there have been no suitable
text books for the use of English speaking
persons who wish to learn the new language
The few in England and America who have
studied it have done so through the medium
of German or French. Now that Professor